


Funny

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Freaks and Geeks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-10
Updated: 2004-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They do it in the back of Kim Kelly's Gremlin, and Neal watches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Funny

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sáre

 

 

They do it in the back of Kim Kelly's Gremlin, and Neal watches. The first time, it was completely an accident. Not the making out-- that looked pretty darned intentional-- but Neal didn't mean to catch them. He was on his bike, not because there was anywhere to go but because going nowhere was better than going home. It was raining a little, and he was thinking about how the tire was going to slip on the wet sidewalk and send him careening into the road, to be hit by something tragicomic, like an ice cream truck. His injuries would be just severe enough to make his parents sorry that they'd put their selfishness ahead of him and made his life such a depressing mess.

He saw the Gremlin, parked in an alley along a row of detached garages, and he slowed down. The brakes resisted, and he thought, death by Gremlin. That wouldn't even be funny. Or tragic. Death by Gremlin would be ridiculous.

He was going just slow enough to see that there were people making out in the Gremlin. He thought it might be funny to pretend to be a cop, to knock on the window and say in a goofy high-pitched voice that they were under arrest for public lewdness. Sex wasn't necessarily funny, but lewdness was hysterical.

He peeked into the car, fist raised and ready for the hilarious knock, and saw that one of the people making out was Lindsay Weir. He got back on his bike and pedaled like his ass was on fire.

Asses on fire? Always good for a laugh.

He took the same route the next day, out of curiosity, and the Gremlin was parked in the same place. He hid his bike among some trash cans and pressed his back against one of the garages, hoping that Lindsay and her newest act of cliched rebellion were too busy getting busy to notice him.

A head of sleek blonde hair rose up and pressed against the Gremlin's window. Lindsay's newest act of cliched rebellion was a girl. The ass-on-fire act was good for a repeat performance.

When he was out of range and out of adrenaline, he realized it was pretty hot. He'd seen pictures of two girls together in one of the porn magazines he'd stolen from his dad, but it hadn't occurred to him that real girls did that. Girls that he went to school with, girls who were his best friend's sister. But he guessed somebody had to, or nobody would have known to put it in porn.

The next day, he came back with binoculars. They let him spy from a safe distance, but they gave him the strange sensation that he was leaning into the window of the car, joining in. The binoculars also sharpened his view enough for him to figure out that the other girl was Kim Kelly. He didn't like knowing that. When she had only been a hot blonde fantasy girl, the situation had been just unreal enough to play as dark comedy. But this was Sam's sister and Sam's sister's best friend, kissing and groping in a car in an alley. Her best friend, but somehow they'd crossed the line into going out, if secretly messing around in a Gremlin counted as dating.

Still. Sam's sister's best friend. Sam's sister making out with Kim Kelly was like-- it made him sick to his stomach to think about it-- like him kissing Sam. He could tell himself until his ass was on fire that two girls kissing equaled hot and two guys kissing equaled gay, but it wasn't any different.

Once in a while, he'd wondered if Sam was kind of gay. It would have explained some things. But Neal knew he wasn't, himself: girls were hot, and guys weren't, and it really was that simple. It felt better to know that wasn't going to happen to him, but it felt weird to even be sitting there thinking about the possibility, so he put his binoculars back in their case, biked around the neighborhood until the sun began to set, and went home to listen to his father tease him passive-aggressively for being sullen.

The fourth day, he brought the binoculars again. He also brought his old Boy Scout canteen, filled a third of the way with vodka from his dad's liquor cabinet and the rest of the way with orange juice. Liquid courage, or liquid spy tactics.

He set himself up behind the row of hedges that lined the cul-de-sac at the end of the street and took a swig of screwdriver. The booze made his legs feel gummy, so he didn't ride away when Kim Kelly pushed Lindsay's Army jacket off her shoulders and put her hands on Lindsay's breasts. Lindsay closed her eyes and formed her mouth into a loose O. She looked fake, like the blow-up doll that Neal's dad had gotten from his buddies for his 40th birthday.

Lindsay had looked fake ever since she'd stopped acting like a normal person. Neal's crush on her had been stronger back when she still wore shirts with butterfly collars and kilts with perfect pleats. That was how Neal thought girls should dress: classic, well-kept, alluring in what they didn't show. And in short skirts, so when Neal and Bill were over at Sam's house playing board games on the living room floor, and Lindsay walked by, Neal could see all the way up.

He used to have fantasies where he would slide his hand up Lindsay's skirt and slowly roll her tights down her legs. He hadn't known what a vagina looked like, not having discovered his dad's porn stash yet, but he'd had a vivid imagination.

It had been a couple of years since he'd even thought about those fantasies. He'd never told anyone about them, because Sam and Bill would have thought it was gross to be thinking that way about Sam's sister, and who else was there to tell? When Bill had found out and made fun of him, it had only made more sense for Neal to hold everything in.

But it was good to store up those secret disappointments. Most great comedians had lots of them, and eventually they stopped hurting and turned into joke material. It was like Carol Burnett said: "Comedy is tragedy plus time."

At least, Neal hoped it was like the woman said, because at this rate, his teen years were going to be a comedy gold mine. He wished that someone would give him the punch line in advance. It was one thing to wait through a complicated setup, knowing how good the payoff would be, but his life was turning into a shaggy dog story with a tired pun at the end.

Neal squinted into the binoculars and got an eyeful of breasts. Lindsay's breasts. He dropped the binoculars, bent over to pick them up, and snagged the sleeve of his shirt on the handbrake of his bike. Trying to free himself, he stumbled sideways and crashed into an empty trash can. The trash can fell to the ground like a drunken elephant, rolled into the street, smack into Kim Kelly's Gremlin. He should have been embarrassed or terrified; he should have gotten on his bike and pedaled like his ass was on fire. But all he could do was sit on the sidewalk, laughing himself hoarse.

The next thing he knew, Kim Kelly was looming over him, fists at her sides, face crimson with rage. He imagined smoke coming out of her ears and started laughing again.

She found his binoculars and dangled them in his face. "Were you watching us, you little perv?" she said. "Were you beating your meat and watching us?"

"Not... exactly?" Neal said, getting up and instinctively shielding his face.

Kim was sizing him up, like she was appraising how best to kick his ass. She drew back her arm, but just in time, Lindsay said, "Kim, no. You can't kill him. He's-- he's Neal." Lindsay was clutching her Army jacket closed. She looked like she was shivering, even though it was a warm afternoon. "Neal, that was *private*," she said.

"You were in a car," Neal said, amazed that his voice didn't crack. He sounded brave, like he was performing. "On a public street in broad daylight. The windows weren't even rolled up. Every dirty old man on the block was probably watching."

Both of the girls were silent.

Neal smirked. "So, ladies," he said, "same place tomorrow?"

Lindsay opened her mouth to say something, but Kim held out her hand, palm up, and said, "Twenty bucks."

"Kim!" Lindsay said.

"What?" Kim said. "You *know* he's got a twenty stashed somewhere in that little vest he's wearing."

"Go home, Neal," Lindsay said. "And don't-- don't tell Sam. Or my parents. Or--"

"Anyone," Neal said. "I won't tell anyone."

"Thanks," Lindsay said. She followed Kim back to the Gremlin. While she was making a point of rolling up the passenger side window, Kim rounded the cul-de-sac and peeled out.

Neal gathered up his binoculars and canteen and got on his bike. A few blocks later, he ducked into an alley and gulped down the rest of his screwdriver. Dizzy, he staggered to someone's lawn, lay his bike down on its side, sat in the grass, and laughed until his stomach hurt.

 


End file.
